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Shihan John Richards :: Magazine Articles
Traditional Karate - Volume 1, Number 8 - January 1988
The force and form of John Richards Article by Dave Wakeling
page 3 of 5
D.W:I know that you have trained under several sensei. Do you have any favourites?
J.R: Definitely. First there's Tomita Sensei. He didn't have very good English, but he could get his message across clearly, because he was willing to spend time doing so. He was very graceful, but at the same time, very powerful. Next there's Ticky Donovan, who has taught me a lot. From him I learned how to deal with all different types of person and bring out the best in them. It's the sort of diplomacy where everyone feels inspired to try a little bit harder. I have seen some teachers just sweep a student's legs away from under him for making a mistake, but not actually taking the time to explain the fault to him. To me, this sort of man isn't teaching, but just showing off his own power. Having said that, it sometimes take a bit of brute force to get a student alerted!
D.W:Oh, the stick and the carrot?
J.R: That's right. You can more or less weigh up in the first few minutes which students you'll have to shout at and which ones you'll have to encourage and coax along. It's all down to tactics. Sometimes you can build up the tension in the class with a few well-timed shouts and get the work rate up. The main thing is to consider how to develop the team spirit in a class. If everyone around you is driving hard, then that is the ultimate. That's when everyone can make progress. The instructor's main aim should be to fill the room with energy, develop a team spirit and be proud to see his students training with self-discipline. People find that they can do things that they never thought they would. I find this especially true of my female students.
D.W:Maybe that explains why the Zen-Shin women have been so successful in competition.
J.R: Right. There's no special compensations in our group. We all train the same, with club spirit, for the club and for ourselves. I did start off by running an all-female class. It was good, but it was missing something. I scrapped this and have run mixed classes ever since. It makes a lot more sense from a self-defence point of view, because it's not often that a woman will have to defend herself against another woman.
D.W:What about the children? It seems that there are more and more under 12s joining clubs these days. Have you had to learn any extra skills in order to teach children correctly?
J.R: To be honest, teaching kinds wasn't something I particularly looked for. It was more something I had to adapt to. It is different, and I sometimes hold separate classes for juniors - especially beginners. You have to use different tactics for children. It has to be fun as well as Karate. In order to capture their imagination you have to make the training into a form of a game. Up until about 10 their attention span is about the same in seconds as their ages are in years! However it's worth the effort because, after a few years, good grades start coming through and this is the future of the club. However, it can seem like a torment at times!
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Shihan John Richards :: Magazine Articles
D.W: I know that you have trained under several sensei. Do you have any favourites?
D.W: Maybe that explains why the Zen-Shin women have been so successful in competition.
